


Colours

by Sylvalum



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Video Game)
Genre: A little bit Angst and a big chunk of Fluff, M/M, Not Really Crack, Sunsets and rainbows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 21:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13373487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvalum/pseuds/Sylvalum
Summary: AU in which everything is pretty much the same, except Jin is really passionate about nature - and Malos, not so much.





	Colours

**Author's Note:**

> Main _protagonists_? Never heard of ‘em
> 
> And whoa, I've never written for Xenoblade before, Yikes (tm)

**i.**

Two cloaked figures ghosted the streets just as dusk fell, and all who met them seemed to turn the other way to avoid them by pure instinct. They seemed to be looking for something, someone… until the one in the white cloak suddenly slows to a stop. The one with the black cloak halts too, his face annoyed as he tosses back his hood.

“What is it now, Jin?” 

Jin, face still hidden underneath his hood, says quietly, “Look, Malos.”

Malos currently wears an expression which quite clearly says: now why do I put up with him? –but he _does_ look where Jin points, nevertheless. Not that he understands _why_ Jin wants him to look at the Cloud Sea… And then he does. He sighs. “The sunset?”

Jin doesn’t answer, which is in itself answer enough.

The sunset. Yellows and pinks clashing at the horizon, colouring the Cloud Sea in turn. The sun sets every night, and Malos can’t really see the point of this. Of watching a piece of nature for a prolonged time – you could do many more productive things in that time. Like what they should be doing right now: heading to meet with Ahkos.

“Jin.” 

He replies calmly, “We should be on our way.”

“Precisely.” Malos says. To which Jin still doesn’t move, so Malos rolls his eyes and starts walking away by himself, pushing up his hood again… And after seven steps he halts again, seeing as Jin is still very much standing there. They’ll be late to their briefing, at this rate-

“Jin, we don’t have all night.”

-And finally, Jin starts walking again. Malos takes the lead this time, and Jin follows until he’s caught up to him, the both of them walking side by side on empty streets. Light shines out through the windows, shadows moving around on the other side of the curtains. Muffled voices. They don’t cross paths with a single human though, so at last Malos gets bored of the quiet, and asks, “What was so special about that sunset?”

“Other than the beauty?”

“It was hardly that pretty.” He scoffs.

“Prefer the stars?” asks Jin.

“I prefer _nothing_ ,” says Malos. “There’s no point in observing nature.”

“Nature is… aesthetically pleasing.” Jin pauses. “Nature untouched by humans is calm, serene.”-Malos doesn’t reply, because that is one point he won’t argue. And then Jin of course has to ask, “ _Is_ there anything _you_ think pretty to look at?”

“Our plans being set in motion,” Malos says curtly. “Seeing our plans succeed.”

“Nothing else?” Jin asks, as they come to a stop in front of a door. He glances at Malos with an odd look in his soft blue eyes, and Malos knocks on the door thrice, saying, but with less conviction than before, 

“No.”

 

**ii.**

It was a damn rare sight to see the leaders of Torna arguing about something. Like, by now Malos was gesturing and pacing around, while Jin had sat down by the wall like he was just too exhausted by this argument and couldn’t be bothered to hear Malos finish it. And _yes, Ahkos_ , Malos can see him just fine where he’s lurking behind that wall, and if he has something to say then _step out already._

“-collateral damage doesn’t _matter_ , and in any case-“

“Malos?” Jin interrupted. “I _just_ wanted you to say you’ll try not to destroy as much forest next time. If you could?”

“Again with preserving nature! What’s the big deal?!”

“I like nature!” Jin actually _exclaimed_. “What has nature ever done to you?”

“ _How_ \- no, _why_ are we discussing this? This is a waste of time.” Malos turned his back to Jin, and yelled, “Ahkos! Quit your eavesdropping and get those blueprints here.”

 

**iii.**

“-snowflakes up close. The intricate details in such a small-“

Malos was beginning to suspect that Jin had taken ‘convert Malos to a nature-enthusiast’ as some sort of personal challenge, and he really didn’t appreciate it. Jin’s quiet monologue should have been easy to ignore, except it wasn’t, and Malos didn’t care how rare it was to get the chance to go to Tantal – he was getting tired of hearing about ice crystals and blizzards and goddamn _icicles._

“Jin, we’re here to look for something,” he reminds him, cutting Jin off.

“I’m aware,” he says. And then he takes Malos’ hand – snatches it before Malos can avoid it – and tugs Malos along to the edge of the path. They’re standing high up on the mountainside, and the drop down from this point would surely kill a human… but Jin points with his other hand somewhere down below, and Malos resignedly glances that way.

“Trees? …White trees?”

“The lights,” Jin explains, “When the light hits the snow just right, and the branches glow.”

He lets out a sigh, breath forming clouds in the cold air. “…No, I still don’t see your point.”

 

**iv.**

They get into a fight with some guards while in Uraya, and the next day they’re cleaning blood off of their swords. Jin’s quiet again, and Malos can’t really understand why he’s not enjoying the silence. They split up the group, and originally Malos planned to take Ahkos with him and Jin – but then Mikhail and Patroka started yelling at each other, so he reconsidered and sent Ahkos off to babysit them. So now it’s just the two of them again, following an old dirt path…

Nothing really happens, until Jin suddenly speaks quietly, “This world… humans don’t deserve to have it.”

“No,” says Malos, and thinks- “They really don’t.” –thinks of how the guards of yesterday tried to use their Blades as meat-shields, cannon-fodder, _tools_. If hatred and loathing and anger were tangible things, then there would be a monstrous black bird following Malos, never quite letting him out of sight, and sometimes swooping down low upon him with its talons reaching.

Jin says, “That is why I made my promises.” 

-And that’s the end of the discussion, because then he motions to the forest farther down the hill, and Malos just Knows. He says, flatly, “The… shimmering pink branches?”

“Those, yes,” replies Jin, and Malos thinks he sounds almost smug. 

“They’re too damn pink,” says Malos. “Annoyingly so.”

“They shine in the dark,” Jin says, like that’s a redeeming quality.

“Ether glows in the dark, too. So do lanterns. Fire. Glowsticks.”

 

**v.**

Night-time in the Leftherian archipelago is quiet, unassuming, and coloured in different hues of blue and grey. The sole reason they’ve docked here, is because Mikhail said he needed to land the ship so that he could repair something which had been damaged in their last landing; the time when they almost crashed through a rock formation. _There’s_ another reason why Malos dislikes nature – rock formations. Obstacles out of cliffs…

-He starts pacing around the deck, alone.

Until Jin joins him, leaning against the wall and watching him. Malos soon stops walking after that – and then he _actually_ glances out over the remote island they’re stranded on, just looking. There is absolutely _nothing_ in sight which could be called remarkable or beautiful or interesting in this landscape, so when he walks up to Jin, Malos is nearly smirking.

“Did Mikhail say when he’ll be done?” he asks, standing in front of Jin.

“I haven’t talked to him since we docked.” Jin looks at him, like he’s thinking about saying something else but not being able to decide what. “The sky is clear tonight,” he decides upon, at last.

“And?”

“The stars are easier to see.”

Oh, yeah? “So you came up here… to stargaze?”

Jin just looks at him, and Malos shakes his head. Of all nature’s phenomena, he minded the stars the least, because there really wasn’t any way for them to get in your way. They were just _there_ , and that was it. But stargazing…?

“I can’t see the appeal.”

“What of sunrises?” Jin asks. “What of rainbows?”

“Again, I don’t particularly care.”

“Waterfalls? Deserts?”

“Deserts are irritating,” Malos replies. “And so are waterfalls.”

Quiet falls again, while Jin looks at him pensively. His eyes look just as blue at night, which is… almost unnerving. When he speaks again, Malos tears his eyes away.

“You find _nothing_ in Alrest even remotely beautiful?” Jin asks. Like – he just asks that, in that quiet way he says everything. And looks at Malos, who then looks back and just lets the words slip out,

“If I admit that _you_ ’re beautiful, will that get you off my case?”

-To which Jin freezes for three whole seconds, and Malos has to look away wondering _why_ -

And then Jin brushes his fingers over Malos’ hand, before taking it. And then “I don’t think so,” he says, softly, and neither of them are looking at each other. Until Malos looks down at their linked hands, and grips Jin’s, thinks something vague and fleeting, and brings Jin’s hand up to press a kiss to the back of it.

“Good,” he says, the slightest of wavers in his voice. And when he glances up, Jin is smiling, faintly.


End file.
